Buena Vista Obscura: Captain Cook's Followup

Just a brief addendum and followup for those of you whose appetite was whet by my previous post regarding that ubiquitous early Polynesian Village lounge, Captain Cook's Hideaway. This functions as both an extension and a rectification of my previous post.

I can now say with more certainty that I have identified the original location of Captain Cook's Hideaway, and it was not where I thought it was. In my original post I indicated that photographs of the establishment seem to be rare. Although pictures of the entrance and inside certainly are, almost any early promotional photograph of the Polynesian Village is certain to contain some part of Captain Cook's Hideaway... ...assuming the photograph is an exterior view, taken from the air.

Here's just one example, taken from "The Magic of Disneyland and Walt Disney World".


Based on the foliage growth and completeness of the Golf Resort in the background, I think this photograph was taken no later than 1974. If we move in closer the item of interest, typically, is right on the crease of the page, which I have rejoined digitally. Take special note of the circular structure in the lower left.


This outdoor patio is certainly the original location of Captain Cook's. There's a palm tree growing right up through the middle of it. The location of all other original Polynesian eateries has safely been established to be inside the lobby structure, and Captain Cook's Hideaway is the only original eatery which advertises an outdoor area:

"CAPTAIN COOK'S HIDEAWAY Dockside cocktails served inside or outside at the Polynesian Village. Open from 11 am until 2 am. Entertainment." - Walt Disney World News, Vol. 1 No. 1, October 1971

"For guests desirous for a dark rendezvous and the strains of a haunting guitar, Captain Cooks Hideaway provides both, as well as an outside patio romantically bathed in soft candlelight." - Walt Disney World Vacationland, Spring 1973

So here it is, the Captain Cook's Hideaway dockside patio. Though the torches ringing the patio burn bright, and it may not be dark enough yet to get the full effect of a romantic candlelight, it is bright enough to see that palm tree extending through the patio on the left and that circular building out by the pool in the background. This means that Captain Cook's Hideaway occupied a spot *just west* of the current location of the food court it later gave its name to, and where the indoor arcade is now. This image is from the 1977 "Walt Disney World ... a pictorial souvenir".


"Time takes on a leisurely tempo in the romantic South Seas environment of the Polynesian Village. As guests wander along palm-lined paths beside tropical pools, the throb of Tahitian drums announces the nightly torchlit luau held on the white-sand beach i front of the low-silhouetted guest "longhouses"."

As originally constructed almost every room in the Polynesian Village faced the water.

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Previous Buena Vista Obscura entries:
Captain Cook's Hideaway
The Lake Buena Vista Story: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
The Golf Resort

"Snapshot" series at Passport to Dreams Old & New:
Olde World Antiques
The Great Southern Craft Company

Buena Vista Obscura: Captain Cook's Hideaway

One aspect of the Walt Disney World Vacation Kingdom in her earliest days which is least likely to translate appropriately to our modern experience is how the entire resort was constructed as a multitude of experiences of which the Magic Kingdom was only the centerpiece. While it's true that this is still the case and the most remarkable things you can do at Walt Disney World are oftentimes the ones you don't even set foot in a theme park to experience, it takes the repeat visitor oftentimes to finally wrestle herself free of the lure of the parks and really get to exploring the intricate backwaters of Walt Disney World. Now those who have explored the pages of an old issue of Walt Disney World Vacationland may be surprised that, yes, there are indeed articles about the Magic Kingdom, but the bulk of the issue is devoted to all the other things you could do at Walt Disney World, even in those early days.

There's good reason for this. For the first ten years of the resort's existence, the Magic Kingdom ran very short operating hours unless it was a holiday season or the summer rush. Open at 10 am and close at 6 pm. That's an eight hour operating day for the centerpiece of Walt Disney World for most of the year.

To put this in perspective, the absolutely shortest regularly scheduled operating day at the Magic Kingdom today is one of those days when the park closes early for a hard ticket event - 9 am to 7 pm, a ten hour operating day. Closing at 6 pm is pretty extraordinary. None of the sit down restaurants would even make it into the dinner rush! There were two very simple parades daily - various entertainers and characters would pile onto the Main Street Vehicles and proceed in haphazard fashion through the park - and there were no fireworks unless the park was open past midnight.

Given these circumstances even the day tripper would be likely to maximize their effort and retreat to one of the Disney hotels on the monorail to take in dinner or a show such as the Electrical Water Pageant, and this is just how Disney wanted it. Although the Magic Kingdom may have closed at 6 pm, the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village was open every day until 10 or later, and every resort had at least one bar or night club open until 2 am, complete with live entertainment - the Trophy Room at the Golf Resort, the Village Restaurant at Lake Buena Vista, The Top of the World at the Contemporary. So the oft repeated canard that Walt Disney World was once a place with less emphasis on the Magic Kingdom may be rephrased to emphasize that Walt Disney World was once a place *designed* to make you take advantage of the offerings outside the gates of the Magic Kingdom.

This was the time period in the resort's history when it was most markedly different than what we have today. With the park's closing designed to force most guests out of the theme park and into Walt Disney World's other areas, Disney was coming up with ingenious night time entertainment offerings such as the Eastern Winds and Moonlight Cruises. It was a time when tourists and cast members alike flocked to the new modern hotels being built on property along SR 535 near the Preview Center, which offered the newest night life and dining, such as Howard Johnson's "Place For Rib". It was a time when the campfire sing-along on the beaches of Fort Wilderness was as important a part of your day as riding Space Mountain or Pirates of the Caribbean, and the sounds of a Dixieland quartette echoed across the Seven Seas Lagoon from a dimly lit sidewheeler, pacing the waters on a romantic moonlight "showboat" cruise.

Great Ceremonial House, looking south on the second level, 1972 or 1973

I provide all this set up because by itself, Captain Cook's Hideaway isn't much to talk about. It was, in fact, a single room, dimly lit, located on the ground floor of the Polynesian Village's Great Ceremonial House. Across from the South Seas Dining Room, a simple buffet, these two establishments occupied a small side hallway on the ground level where currently the large open "BouTiki" shop is located. In those early days before the various Gift Shops and Eateries were modified in such a way to open up into the Polynesian's dramatic atrium, the Great Ceremonial House mostly resembled an open box with two levels and fairly featureless bamboo walls.

But Captain Cook's was the very original Cast Member hangout, long before the Adventurer's Club or the Big Bamboo was a glimmer in anyone's eye, and as such maybe deserves more attention than it would otherwise receive. On pages 125 and 126 of Realityland, author David Koenig relates Disney World's efforts to get SR 535 modernized to handle the large amounts of employee traffic currently traveling on it - a problem they had, of course, created, the road itself predating Walt Disney World by many years. Disney was unwilling to contribute the needed funds for adding shoulders, lanes and such, but they were willing to launch a massive PR campaign which included a song by Captain Cook's resident musical duo, the improbably named Salt Water Express - 'Can You Arrive Alive on 535?' The song was submitted to local radio stations and even plastered on billboards. Disney got their road widened on the government's dime, and such is the lot of obscure facets of Walt Disney World that they are often mixed up in stories bigger than their actual profile may suggest. One wonders how many Disney guests those many summer nights ago were confounded by talk of "Arriving alive on 535".

Disney described their creation in more romantic terms in a 1973 Vacationland:

"For guests desirous for a dark rendezvous and the strains of a haunting guitar, Captain Cooks Hideaway provides both, as well as an outside patio romantically bathed in soft candlelight."

There are very few photos of the inside of the place, which probably indicates that it wasn't much to look at. Salt Water Express began their sets at 9 pm and went until 2:30 pm, except on Monday, either seated in a corner romantically lit with a soft purple light or amongst the patrons. The real attraction, of course, was a cozy getaway from the bustle of what was already one of America's busiest fun centers, with the comfort of a potent tropical cocktail.

The namesake of the establishment, Captain James Cook, was killed by Hawaiians after trying to take hostage of the King of Hawaii in 1779. Although probably nobody was killed by the Polynesian Village resort staff in Captain Cook's Hideaway during the watering hole's run, the notion of the white man gradually succumbing to intoxication via one of the bar's potent tropical cocktails while the folk strains of Salt Water Express ring through the room makes for a strangely appropriate connection. In later years, as the resort became more of a family centered enterprise, Captain Cook lent his name to the new food court which, albeit many renovations later, still bears his name.

In a way it's hard to be too excited about these sort of places at Walt Disney World on an individual basis, and indeed it's not Captain Cook's Hideaway but what it represented in its time which fascinates today. There is very little at Walt Disney World today which resembles it, and even the darkest of dark bars is likely to serve lemonade and punch in light-up cups along with their adult-only concoctions. It's simply hard to reconcile the child-centric wonderland of Walt Disney World today with a place that used to promote restaurants serving "Gallic fair in a high timbered room smelling of cedar" (the Lake Buena Vista Club) or "nightly floor shows featuring top name performers" (the Top of the World).

In a way, then, perhaps Captain Cook's Hideaway is of interest. The Polynesian Resort is, of course, today quite notable for her lack of a real tiki bar, a truly dark and adult escape into a world of imagined exotic pleasures. Captain Cook's may have been Disney's concession to the "Trader Vic's" crowd, an establishment which is itself today as endangered and rare as early Walt Disney World. So next time you're in line waiting to buy your massive Dole Whip or pulled pork flatbread, raise a refillable mug to the original Captain Cook's Hideaway and the Salt Water Express - now just a hazy, rum soaked memory flitting elusively across time, dancing off the waters of the Seven Seas Lagoon, the waves from the phantom wave machine, the ghost boat on a moonlight cruise to nowhere.

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Previous Buena Vista Obscura entries:
The Lake Buena Vista Story: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
The Golf Resort

The Lake Buena Vista Story, Part Four: Postscript

The Lake Buena Vista Story, Part Four: Postscript
By FoxxFur

So why should we care about Lake Buena Vista, in the end? Americans have never been particularly sympathetic to the creations of just a generation or two past, and it’s doubtful that too many of the people who approved the demolition of the Villas in 2002 saw much value in their outdated design, only in the land they stood on. While it’s true that the Villas were not yet old enough to be considered “cool retro” and perhaps, outside of the Treehouses, most average guests would agree that they were not very memorable, to point out the reasons why those little wooden apartments and condos and townhomes were important we should return to Dick Nunis in that 1982 issue of Eyes & Ears:

“I don’t think Walt ever intended to have a permanent resident population. I think he wanted to have a large tourist population and an area where people from all walks of life could come and learn.

I can remember when we got the final big parcel of our land which included Bay Lake. It was in the summer of 1966, and Walt called me up to his apartment in Disneyland, and he was really happy. He said, “Just think Dick, we own 43 square miles. That’s like getting on top of the Matterhorn and looking 7 miles one way and 11 miles the other. We’re going to be able to have our own Disneyland, our own Knott’s Berry Farm, our own Marineland and a couple of cities to boot.”

In Married to the Mouse, Richard Foglesong recounts how a memo found in the desk of Walt Disney following his death in 1966 pertaining to the development of the EPCOT city had every mention of “20,000 residents” and “voting rights” crossed out in red pen. It was these 20,000 residents that Disney dangled in front of the Florida legislature in 1967 to get their two municipalities – Bay Lake and Reedy Creek (later Lake Buena Vista) approved, as well as a total independence from all local government oversight. Perhaps most erroneous of all, from Florida’s perspective, a small passage in one of the three bills specified that these powers would remain in spite of any past or future legislation, freezing Disney’s powers in time at the moment when Orlando needed Disney most but Disney needed Orlando least (indeed, they had been threatening to pack up and move north to Ocala).

As a result Disney today exercises total control over their two towns through the independent Reedy Creek Improvement District government, with no need to move through the local planning and zoning boards. Disney can spend money and go out tomorrow to start shoveling dirt. This is how The Disney-MGM Studios beat Universal’s opening in 1989 by a year – the same amount of time it took Universal’s construction project to be approved by the local Orlando government.

But this is what made Lake Buena Vista, and all of Walt Disney World, extraordinary, was their total lack of oversight from local governing bodies, allowing their creations to be geared towards maximum effectiveness and aesthetic quality, something no mere housing development outside of the 27,000 square mile Florida property can hope to achieve. In his book Foglesong indicates that Disney likely never intended to build their EPCOT City. I’m not so sure that’s true, but I’m also not so sure that that Lake Buena Vista wasn’t the evolved version of the EPCOT City. For the last several years of Disney’s life WED Enterprises had more or less been doing their own thing, with Disney in a largely ceremonial role. At a 1966 lunch meeting with local Florida policymaker Billy Dial, Dial bluntly asked Disney:

“What would happen to this project if you walked out and got hit by a truck?”

“Absolutely nothing”, said Walt. “My brother Roy runs this company. I just piddle around.”

So the question becomes whether Walt Disney, had he lived another five or ten years, would’ve become just another Lake Buena Vista townhouse owner.



Where it’s hard to prove that the company ever seriously considered building a 20,000 person City of Tomorrow once they got their 1967 charter from the State of Florida, especially one that would’ve required the cooperation of dozens of American companies to make it successful, it is comparatively easy to prove that Disney did plan on building a 30,000 person vacation town. In his EPCOT film Walt Disney calls EPCOT a “showcase for American free enterprise” and accounts of what was planned for his EPCOT city involve errie images of nonpermanent residents with no voting or property rights being shuffled around on Disney controlled peoplemovers and living in houses where things like major appliances are constantly being replaced with the new prototype models by the companies that own them. Who wants to live in a house where you don’t even own your own computer?

But Disney could and did build a substantial portion of their “vacation city” project entirely on their own, using their own land and their own powers. And so in a way, that absurd old publicity line of Disney’s is true - Walt Disney World is EPCOT, it is a demonstration of American Free Enterprise – Disney’s Free Enterprise. Whether Disney knew it or not until a decade or so later, their Reedy Creek charter doomed EPCOT back in 1967. Now they didn’t need the rest of American Free Industry to build their model city. It’s hard to argue that the billions of people who have visited Walt Disney World in the last forty years and found it to be inspiring, artistic and unique wouldn’t attribute that to Disney’s free hand and total control of their kingdom. There is no more compelling argument for the effectiveness of a privately owned and controlled master planned community anywhere in the United States.

Lake Buena Vista was important because it was the one time, the single time, that Disney went out and put down in the soft Florida soil the few steps they took towards accomplishing their city, the stated reason for coming to Florida to begin with. Whether or not the Company ever took Walt Disney’s city concept seriously, they took their mission in Florida as community building very seriously. They wouldn’t succeed in actually opening a residential city and fulfilling their long ago promise to the State of Florida until the city of Celebration would open in 1996, Eisner’s nostalgic version of any anytown America of a half-century before. If one traces the evolution of the concept from Walt Disney to Michael Eisner, a fascinating irony becomes apparent: Disney’s city was forward thinking, revolutionary, fascinating, and scary. Disney’s heirs’ city was modern, ecologically sophisticated, adult and sedate. Disney’s heirs’ heirs’ city was backward-thinking, nostalgic, comforting… middlebrow. But still control-freak. Remember those stories of Celebration residents waiting until nightfall to paint their front doors a forbidden color as a form of protest?

Pointedly, Celebration also required Disney to de-annex their land from the Reedy Creek Charter since it would require residents with voting powers to be a successful draw. This led to a series of ugly public showdowns between residents and majority landowner Disney over the issue of public schools which eventually led to Disney’s removal of their trademark mouse ears from the Celebration water tower and the cessation of internal Walt Disney World promotion of Celebration as a tourism destination.

Lake Buena Vista simply got lost in the fold. But while it’s fun to talk about and think about things like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and If You Had Wings and the Main Street Wonderland of Wax, those lost components are just the nutshell. The real meat of the nut – the chewy center, the real thing – was the entire lost community of Lake Buena Vista, and the tendrils of influence the radiate outward from that development reach into nearly every area of the entire property – it’s the true story of Walt Disney World, impossible to ignore. So never mind EPCOT. EPCOT was a model, a dream, Disney’s El Dorado. Lake Buena Vista was out there, being planned, being built.

It’s still there if you know where to look. The back of the Lake Buena Vista Club still faces a shimmering lagoon… maybe not the one that diners there would’ve enjoyed in 1980, with stands of cypress and moonlight playing across the waves. It faces a golf course, a parking lot, and the back of the House of Blues. But she’s still there, waiting for you, a part of history which has escaped detection, demolition. Walk through her and see if you can guess where that couple sat long ago sipping wine, silhouetted by a 1975 Florida sunset, while a string quartet played their tune.



Go downstairs and walk through her pro shop and adjoining offices, and feel the 1970’s still alive down there. Go find the square patch of grass where once there was a pool, the Clubhouse overlooking her tranquil blue water. Go to the tennis courts, not moved since then, and imagine you’re winding up for a swing in the heart of the river and lake country of Central Florida, out away from it all.



That wooden bridge over Club Lake is still there too, by the way. Walk out across the bridge one foggy morning or breezy evening and tell me what you see. Maybe you’ll see those low little brown bungalows again too. I know I did.

Come find me!

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Thanks very much to the following for their help in this article: Michael Crawford, Fee Doyle, Mike Lee, Martin Smith, Steve Russes, George Taylor.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Chronology of Walt Disney World”, by Ken Polsson http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/wdworld/
“Disney News” Vol. 16 No. 3, Ed. Margaret Lee, June 1981
“Disney’s Village Resort Guest Atlas”, property map, Walt Disney World Co., 1989
“Eyes and Ears of Walt Disney World”, May 1982
Flickr.Com, user “Russes” http://www.flickr.com/photos/russes
“Lake Buena Vista Peoplemover” 1976
“Lake Buena Vista Village News”, Vol. 2 No. 5, June 1976
“Married to the Mouse”, by Richard Foglesong, Yale University Press: New Haven, 2001
Mouse Planet, “Villas at Disney Institute” internet resource. http://mouseplanet.com retrieved Jan 20 2010
“Realityland”, by Davis Koenig. Bonaventure Press: Irvine, CA. 2007.
“Since the World Began”, by Jeff Kurtti, Hyperion: New York, 1996
“Treehouse Villas II: Electric Bugaloo” by Michael Crawford http://progresscityusa.com
Walt Dated World, http://waltdatedworld.bravepages.com/index.htm
"Walt Disney World", promotional magazine, Walt Disney World Co., 1978
"Walt Disney World, 20 Magical Years", hardcover book, Walt Disney Productions, 1991
"Walt Disney World: the First Decade", hardcover book, Walt Disney Productions, 1982
“Walt Disney World Resort Guide”, promotional booklet, Walt Disney World Co. 1977
“Walt Disney World Vacationland”, Vol. 3, No. 2 ed. Jo Jac Bludworth, Spring 1974
Widen Your World, http://www.omniluxe.net/wyw/wyw.htm
"The World News", Vol. 6 No. 5, ed. Barbara Stuart, June 1976
“World Magazine”, promotional magazine, Walt Disney World Co., 1976

…and too many flyers and brochures to list!

The Lake Buena Vista Story, Part Three: 1982 - 2009

 In 1982, EPCOT Center opened, costing an astonishing $1,400,000,000. 1983 was the year of Horizons, of The Disney Channel, of Tokyo Disneyland, and of a huge executive shakeup which resulted in the ousting of Ron Miller and the installation of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. Lake Buena Vista, as well as all significant development at Walt Disney World and Disneyland would be put on hold until the duo would get the movie side of the company knocked into shape.

1983 saw two more hotels join the Motor Plaza across from the Village – the Buena Vista Palace and the Orlando Hilton. And in 1985, the collection of Villas - which had never quite ever been unified under a single name - became the Walt Disney World Village Resort. By this time, the Lake Buena Vista Club had been renovated to become more family friendly. And in 1989, to coincide with the opening of Pleasure Island and the renaming of the Walt Disney World Village to the Disney Village Marketplace, the Villas’ name was again shortened to Disney’s Village Resort.

The atmosphere of “another little corner of the world” was rapidly changing, especially with the introduction of Pleasure Island. Over in the Village, classy upscale restaurants intended for adults became things like Minnie Mia’s Italian Pizzeria and Chef Mickey’s at the Disney Village Marketplace. The Lake Buena Vista Club was again renovated and the signature restaurant became The Pompano Grill, serving American family food like ‘crispy fried ravioli’ and ‘Key West Caesar salad’. These small changes were big indications of a changing tide, in both Disney’s objectives and in what the public was expecting. But there were others, too.

As part of Eisner’s entry into Disney in 1984, he was required to appease the majority shareholder in the company, Texas oil baron Sid Bass. To prevent a hostile takeover attempt Bass increased his share in the company to 25%, under the condition that Eisner would begin aggressive expansion on the Florida property. Bass saw huge potential in hotel building in Lake Buena Vista and Eisner would begin his expansion plans just a few years later in an agreement which would become his legacy in Walt Disney World.

Club Lake Villas pool, early 1990's

1992 saw the opening of the Dixie Landings and Port Orleans moderate resorts up the canal from the Village Resort, and also in the same year, a sprawling Key West themed hotel complex called the Disney Vacation Club appeared right along the most northward boundary of the Lake Buena Vista Golf Course. The rooms were spacious for the time, and could be rented in studio, one bedroom, two bedroom, or three bedroom configurations. Disney also opened a Disney Vacation Club branch in South Carolina, The Hilton Head, at the same time. Long planned to be a component of the Villa’s transient population, timeshare programs had finally come to Lake Buena Vista, and boats began winding their way up and down the canal which had long bordered the Treehouses on their western side, now known as the Sassagoula River. Development had stretched almost as far north as those 1976 projections called for, with nary a tennis or equestrian community in sight.

By the early 1990’s, having created a successful brand out of floundering Disney divisions like the live-action feature division and the television division, and having overseen the successful rebirth of feature animation at Disney thanks to efforts spearheaded by Roy E. Disney, Michael Eisner was feeling much more confident and hands-on in the theme park and resort division of the company, and he delved into it with considerable gusto. The Disney-MGM Studios had opened to tremendous success, built on Eisner’s experience in the American movie industry, and he had pushed the Disney empire into the heart of Europe with the artistically ambitious if financially burdened Euro Disneyland. Eisner had big plans for the Village Resort, too.

A 1985 visit to the Chautauqua Institution by the Eisners had inspired Michael Eisner to attempt to develop his own version at Walt Disney World, modeled on the 135 year old adult recreation resort in upstate New York. The Disney version would also be modeled on a sleepy small town in New England, and it would be built right on top of the Villas. The teachers would be the on-site Imagineers, animators, chefs, and technicians already installed at Walt Disney World, as well as the occasional visiting author or celebrity.

A 1995 construction project saw big changes and not so big changes at the Village Resort. Club Lake became Willow Lake – a not unfitting name change due to its’ willow dotted shoreline – and the Club Lake Villas and Conference Center were painted in low key earth tones and re-named the Bungalows (left). The Conference Center’s interior was converted into classrooms and became the North Studios. A rock climbing wall was constructed in the forest behind the Conference Center, near two new structures known as the Teaching Gardens.

The Treehouses remained relatively the same in name and appearance, getting a new coat of paint and new interiors. Gone were the rich wood tones, replaced with white painted interiors and uninspired décor. The shag carpets went away. The Vacation Villas were re-dubbed the Townhouses and got by with a new coat of exterior paint. The collection of four houses, rarely used, became Grand Vista Homes. The Fairway Villas were not so fortunate, retaining their name but now painted in garish “tropical” colors. A similar fate befell the Polynesian Village and Village Marketplace, once wonderlands of natural stone and wood, now caked with bright primaries. All of the original community pools were refurbished but untouched. Unlike Eisner developments like Dixie Landings or Caribbean Beach, there would be no central themed swimming pool.

The bulk of the work went on in and around the Buena Vista Club, which finally expanded to become a central lobby and check in facility for the surrounding villas. The Club was built up on the land side, stretching north and east to nearly three times her original dimensions, then west again. The space of the original Lake Buena Vista Club became a dining room known as ‘Seasons’, retaining the original outside patio seating as ‘Seasons Terrace’. On the north side of the new facility, overlooking the ampitheater through tall, sun-splashed windows was a lounge called The Gathering Place, dressed in sophisticated whites and wood tones, high-beamed ceilings, and wispy silky hangings. A signature red tower rose to the West - a dramatic entrance lobby - which linked back to a new façade on the north side designed to mirror the signature chalet-roof of the original Club. A general goods store called Dabblers appeared off the lobby in the main building. This rambling structure also pushed east, widening and swelling to a huge warehouse of a health club and spa.

North of the spa a tree-dotted grassy courtyard came into existence with the construction of two levels of classrooms wrapping its other three sides, dubbed the South Studios. Nearby, directly behind the expanded Clubhouse, an amphitheater amidst rolling greens was carved out of a hillside, and next door, a covered Performance Center, key lime green and topped with a huge painted sign proclaiming “Disney Institute” was constructed. When opened in February 1996, the Disney Institute had a small town atmosphere at its center, complete with sound studios, computer labs, and theaters.

It’s easy to fault Eisner for thinking small due to the legacy of the last ten years of his post at Disney – cheap direct to video sequels, under funded theme parks, bad decisions, and the wreckage of nearly every division in the company - rife with aborted brilliant projects and promising ideas fulfilled on the cheap. But his first ten years in office were as promising as his last ten were disappointing, and the Disney Institute is emblematic of this. It’s a concept that simply wouldn’t even be considered now, fifteen years later.

It’s important to realize about Eisner’s early efforts in the theme park division that prestige was as important to him as profit, sometimes beyond any economic reality, and it is his efforts to bring Disney into the world of contemporary adult recreation that we have to thank for Walt Disney World’s current fleet of modern, stylish restaurants and resorts. The Disney Institute was similarly a prestige product – aimed at somebody who wasn’t very interested, perhaps, in spending all of their time in the theme parks – a stance which is today unthinkable. “You won’t believe what you can do!”, promises a 1998 brochure: “It’s a whole new vacation experience where you can do things you you’ve always wanted to do. You can custom design your vacation, making it as active or relaxed, as you like. A Disney Institute vacation will allow you to combine intriguing and engaging programs with outstanding recreational opportunities. These activities and programs are designed to stretch your body and mind. You’ll have opportunities to see, hear, and do things you never thought possible.”

Rather than work against what was there in 1978, the Disney Institute project embraced the subdued, adult atmosphere of the Lake Buena Vista Villas by crafting a subdued, adult recreation resort, only building onto an existing structure to add the needed support facilities of a modern resort-hotel. Children under the age of seven couldn’t even enroll in any of the Disney Institute programs, and those younger than seventeen didn’t have too many options either. Families with young kids could take their business to one of the other Disney resorts. The program categories were:

Entertainment Arts: Radio, TV, Photography, Acting, Animation, etc

Design Arts: Painting, Decorating, Drawing, Sketching

Story Arts: Disney storytelling

Lifestyles: Self-help, Motivational seminars

Sports and Fitness: Golf, Tennis, Aerobics, Swimming, etc

Culinary Arts: Disney Chef demonstrations

Gardening and the Great Outdoors: Gardening, Landscaping, Conservation

Performing Arts and Film: visiting celebrity ‘instructors’

Youth Programs

But within just a few years, it was clear that the Disney Institute was not becoming very popular with Walt Disney World guests, despite Disney’s massive marketing campaign to keep the resort in the public eye. The Seasons Dining Room had closed, unable to compete with the Village’s offerings across the water – Pleasure Island had, in fact, expanded in 1998, creating the West Side, and the entire trifecta of Village, Pleasure Island and West Side was again rebranded – Downtown Disney. The reasons why the Institute was not doing well are easy to guess at. First is that not many guests at Walt Disney World, then or now, are too interested in taking time out of their vacations for an extracurricular class. Another may be saturation. While Walt Disney World has grown, the average length of the American vacation has not. Eisner’s construction mania may have finally done in his brainchild – when he and Frank Wells inherited Walt Disney World in 1984, it comprised two theme parks, a 100,000 square foot shopping complex, five Disney-owned hotels and six participant hotels. Today there are four theme parks, a 300,000+ square foot shopping complex, seventeen Disney-owned hotels, seven timeshare resorts, eleven participant hotels, and four miniature golf courses. And with only slightly over 450 rooms – the average Disney hotel is more like 850 – and a cast member to guest ratio of one to fifteen, the Institute was a costly failure.

In the meantime, the Disney Vacation Club had ballooned up. In 1996, more Vacation Club units opened at the new Boardwalk resort, and several hundred more were added every two years henceforth, so many that, in fact, the original 1991 development lost it’s status as the singular “Disney Vacation Club” and became “Old Key West”. Since Vacation Club memberships are flexible, require payment up front and yearly dues, and tend to sell pretty quickly, they are a relatively risk free way to build rooms in the Florida property. Even if you build a quality hotel, there’s no guarantee that anybody will come stay in it, and even if they do, it may take years to recoup costs. Vacation Club timeshares sell quickly and return dividends rapidly – as the fastest growing and most consistently profitable element of Walt Disney World by the end of the 1990’s, the writing was on the wall.

After the bottom fell out of the tourism industry in the United States in late 2001, Disney shut a number of resorts – including the Disney Institute. When it finally closed in 2002, the most cost effective measure was to convert the entire Lake Buena Vista development into Vacation Club properties, properties that continue to rake in profits every year – for 50 years. Disney chose to keep the newest developments – the Disney Institute “downtown” with its spa – and a bulldozer did what Eisner had not done back in 1995. Every original building was leveled.

Well, almost.

In the tourism slump which was fallout of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, Disney had quietly shuttered the Treehouses and was using them for housing for International College Program Cast Members. But 2004’s Hurricane Charley, which had unexpectedly hit Florida and caused nearly $13 billion dollars in damage, seriously impacted several original Treehouses and the entire complex was abandoned while construction continued on the site of the former Disney Institute.

Above: the Treehouse kitchen in 1976.

Below: the Treehouse kitchen in 2003, as Cast Member housing.

The Disney Institute concept’s lineage in the Chautauqua Institution resulted in an upper-crust New England atmosphere which had to be honored if the Institute buildings were to be kept, which in turn resulted in a new theme, another one borrowed from upstate New York and the old resort town of Saratoga. Because the original pools and recreation centers of the Lake Buena Vista Villas had been destroyed with the rest of the 1970’s structures, the Disney Institute’s amphitheater became a family-oriented swimming pool themed to Saratoga’s famed hot springs. Everything else remaining received a minor horse-themed overlay: the lobby became known as the “Carriage House”, the Seasons dining room re-opened as the “Turf Club” with whimsical jockey jackets on the walls, and so on. The new four-story, cookiecutter design hotel units matched the Disney Institute structures remarkably well except in one area – quaint charm. The first units of the Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa were ready in May of 2004.

While Saratoga Springs units were selling steadily, Disney turned their eye towards the abandoned Treehouse Villas. Since the Treehouses were on protected wetland, Disney couldn’t level the original structures and build more of the high rise buildings going up elsewhere in the new Saratoga Springs development due to a 1985 Florida wetlands protection law. Similarly, the 1990 Americans with Disability Act would cease protection of the original Treehouses under its’ “grandfather” clause if Disney were to attempt significant repairs on the damaged Treehouses, resulting in costly reconstruction efforts. The most cost efficient thing to do was to block off the entryway to the Treehouses and let them sit, which is what Disney did for several years.

Finally in 2007, the original Treehouses began to come down, replaced with modern versions which, unlike the 1974 Treehouses, were totally elevated, which increased the net drainage space under each structure and allowed Disney to legally work on the protected wetland. The new versions, large, sleek, and modern, opened in 2009 as deluxe accommodations. A legacy that had begun even before Walt Disney World had opened had finally ended.

The Club Lake Villas/Bungalows shortly before demolition.

The bridge was retained for Saratoga Springs, but rebuilt.

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Next week: a Postscript and Why We Should Care

The Lake Buena Vista Story, Part Two: 1975 - 1982

By 1976, The Lake Buena Vista Club was hosting brunch. On Mondays, one could enjoy a Night of Wine & Roses – wine sampling at the Village Spirits, a rose from the Flower Garden, then a romantic, silent flote boate cruise to the Club for dinner. Tuesdays was Dinner for Tue, with a candlelit Club dinner followed by a moonlit cruise. Sundays brought about a Champagne Brunch with stops at Village Spirits, a flote boate cruise to the Club, and a brunch with eggs benedict and roast beef. And Disney was building again in Lake Buena Vista – this time to the West of the Lake Buena Vista Club, East of the Treehouse Villas, nestled comfortably between four golf holes – the 10th and 11th to the east and north, and the 17th and 18th to the west and south. Because of this, these became known as the “Fairway Villas”.





The Fairway Villas were amongst the most dramatic and distinctive of Disney’s developments in Lake Buena Vista, as well as the most architecturally sophisticated. From Walt Disney World: The First Decade:“Designed to showcase energy-efficient housing ideas, the Fairway Villas benefit from thoughtful positioning and energy-conserving construction methods and materials.

Exaggerated roof overhangs and double-glazed windows reduce heat absorption through exterior walls during warm weather. Air-to-air heat pumps serve as energy-minded air conditioners. When an air conditioner is on, heat is recovered from its condenser to provide hot water.

To preserve the major portion of the surrounding acreage for parks and recreation, Disney planners clustered the Lake Buena Vista Villas around heavily wooded courtyards and cul-de-sacs. Planners avoid the ‘grid’ system found in many neighborhoods, where residences are uniformly built on rows of small, square subdivided lots.



Most of the Villas look out onto natural surroundings, rather than onto other dwellings. Thus, clustering not only saves more space for recreation, it retains a sense of privacy while enhancing the spirit of community.”

And an earlier 1977 magazine: “The Villas, expected to yield energy savings of 50 percent with their unique design, each have a 720-square-foot living, dining, and kitchen area and two bedrooms, one of which can be combined with the adjoining Villa. Designed for family vacations, meetings, seminars, and executive conferences, the Villa units will be arranged so that as many as four bedrooms can be rented by one tenant.”



Crazy concept art for the LBV houses

The Treehouses and Fairway Villas, of course, had nearly as many windows as walls, and the Fairway villas had their distinctive skylights, encouraging the use of Florida’s ample sunlight instead of eclectic lamps. Car parking was provided underneath the Villas in dugouts. Today these touches may not be as impressive or obvious as something like the Universe of Energy’s solar panels but in 1976 they were stylish as well as forward thinking, something few residential houses can today claim. Disney even built full-scale residential houses in the style of a ranch house as part of this development, four of them: numbers 301, 302, 303 and 304, clustered around their own little cul-de-sac away from the other Villas. These were intended to be real honest to goodness houses, perhaps in later days as retirement houses for prominent Disney officials. Each had a little car / golf cart port and was built in a different style: southwest for 301, a beach house for 302. Number 303 was a square little ranch house and 304 was a grey little number with some volcanic rock accents.







The LBV houses in later days. Top to bottom, 301 - 304

The experiment was not repeated, and today the houses which are on Walt Disney World property remain hidden off 535 and on the far side of Bay Lake, a carefully selected “population” of less than 50 people.


In 1977, the Sun Bank building went up south of the Village, near Interstate-4 and SR 535. Read some 1978 Disney literature: “The first building of the new Office Plaza, developed by Oxford Properties, US, Ltd, boasts one of the country’s most up-to-date banking systems. The five-story building is the first phase of a planned 13-building office park on a 50-acre site.” Disney was building themselves quite a little town on the outskirts of their property.

1977 brought more changes to the Village. The Shopping Village was originally built on the south-eastern side of an inlet, with Captain Jack’s Oyster Bar, as the northernmost building, facing a sylvan forest. A bit further north along the Village Lagoon (by now re-named the Buena Vista Lagoon), the Vacation Villas had, for five years, faced a little bar of land in the middle of the Lagoon as it narrowed into the canal system near the Lake Buena Vista Club. Disney dammed up an area to the north-west of the Pottery Chalet, sliced off several dozen feet of land off the Villages cozy cove - turning it into more of a bay - removed the island facing the Villas, and began construction of the Empress Lilly Riverboat.



Between it and the pottery Chalet they built the Village Pavilion, a series of interlocked structures housing three new eateries. When the Empress Lilly opened, a new dock was added on the water side of the vessel, facing Captain Jack’s. Now the flote boats would depart exclusively from the Lake Buena Vista Club and silently dock alongside the Lilly, disembarking passengers ascending a gentle ramp and emerging into the Promenade Lounge. Motorboats would ply between “Cruise Dock West”, near Captain Jack’s, and the Lake Buena Vista Club.

The 1977 expansions officially brought a name change to the Village, now the Walt Disney World Village at Lake Buena Vista.



Since the earliest days of the Lake Buena Vista Club, a canal wrapping around its north face had always widened into an elongated dewdrop of a lake, called Club Lake. And in 1978 a series of little buildings began to spring up along the shores of Club Lake, on the shore near the Club and across from it, in what would turn out to be Lake Buena Vista’s final growth spurt in over a decade… The Club Lake Villas.


Probably the most charming of the Lake Buena Vista developments surrounding the Clubhouse, the Club Lake Villas were smaller one-family townhouse type accommodations with a bedroom, a square little living room generously splashed in sunlight thanks to dramatically vertical ceilings and skylights, and a kitchenette. They were clustered in little courtyards with roundabouts between each grouping of four, and each Villa looked out across Club Lake at the far side’s grouping of Villas. A long wooden footbridge was constructed to link the Villas on the north side of Club Lake with the Villas on the south side, which had their own pool and recreation facilities. Or one could follow the golf cart path onto the Lake Buena Vista Club and her pool and marina.



In 1978, the Post Office had moved out of its’ spot in the Village to make way for an expansion of the Village Spirits shop – The Vintage Cellar – and made its way over to the old Preview Center building, where the Lake Buena Vista Post Office became the Lake Buena Vista Welcome Center, offering check in services for those staying in the Villas (a temporary building off Buena Vista Blvd, the major vehicle entryway from Preview Blvd., had served as the Welcome Center until now).



Club Lake in the Institute days

Spring 1980, a high roofed structure surmounted with a signature square tower appeared along the northern coast of Club Lake – the Lake Buena Vista Conference Center. Aimed at the corporate sponsors Disney was still courting in 1980, the “8,000 square foot facility was designed to expressly for small to medium sized meetings and seminars. Movable walls in the cedar-covered, chalet-style building allows the four rooms to be configured in several ways. When the rooms are combined into one 6,500-square-foot space, more than 500 guests may be comfortably seated theater style. The Conference Center also features advanced lighting, sound and audio-visual systems, and can handle television broadcasts, press events and multi-media shows.”

And it was this arrangement – the Lake Buena Vista Golf Course, the Motor Plaza, the Clubhouse, the Marina, the Conference Center, the Treehouses, the Fairway Villas, Vacation Villas and Club Lake Villas – anchored by the Walt Disney World Village – that was pretty much the “finished” form of Lake Buena Vista for over ten years.


What is today hard to emphasize enough about this is how unique, not only for accommodations at Walt Disney World, but unique amongst each different kind of Villa, this community was. The Polynesian and Contemporary Resorts were a pretty standardized size of room, each not especially distinguished from any other high-end resort hotel except for the remarkable Disney design work outside their four walls and the location they were in. Disney themselves certainly never made too many claims that the actual experience of the rooms in their resorts was much to write home about, and priced them competitively in the 1970’s to make staying on property not only convenient but affordable.

The Golf Resort, in comparison, offered somewhat larger rooms, and the Campgrounds at Fort Wilderness larger still, with very large cabins and additional campsites added in 1978. But the Villas were really something else, truly room to spread out in. Not only that, if one wished to ‘go shopping’ amongst each model she could compare things like beddings, staircases, interior finish and kitchen facilities to find a truly comfortable, truly perfectly tailored “best fit”. In these days before Eisner’s aggressive expansion of Disney’s hotel properties, each unit could be uniquely designed and furnished, uniquely situated, uniquely tailored to an individual’s vacation needs. Although it’s hard to fault the hotel addiction on Eisner’s part too much if he gave us great architectural works like the Wilderness Lodge and Boardwalk, but each of those rooms are identical to the others in layout and basic amenities, a far cry from those funky, unique Villas dotting the landscape across from the Village. It may seem out of place here in 1978 to bring up Eisner, but in a very real way Eisner was to alter the future of the Villas… directly and indirectly.

Of course, as of the early eighties with the excitement of the Walt Disney World ‘Tencennial’ and the opening of EPCOT Center, none of that was even foreseeable. From a May 1982 interview with Dick Nunis:

“But what [Walt Disney] really wanted to do [in Florida] was develop an area where all types of corporations, governments, and academia could come together to really try and solve some of the problems that exist in the world today. We started with the recreation area, and then began the community, which is Walt Disney World Village, and now we’re building the center … Epcot Center, and we’re going to connect it all with the monorail system. […] In addition, we have some dreams for the Walt Disney World Village. From the Empress Lilly, we’re going into a New Orleans street, and you’ll walk right into a beautiful New Orleans hotel.”


To this end, in 1981, Disney began to purchase extra monorail beams and pillars from Morrison-Knudsen, a concrete manufacturer, who had also supplied the beams for EPCOT Center at a very reasonable price. Since 1977 Disney had been publishing and promoting a little model showing an expanded Walt Disney World Village, complete with a fully realized office complex, an expanded shopping village, and a monorail and peoplemover running through it – yes, a Peoplemover. As of 1976 the Lake Buena Vista Land Company had begun to plan for a Peoplemover to bring guests from the Motor Plaza hotels into the Village, stopping at the Pottery Chalet, and then moving on. On to where? Well..

“Future plans in the commercial area include a two million square foot office park to be developed in the next ten years. The project is contemplated as the headquarters offices for major financial institutions as well as for local professional business. The shopping village will be expanded in the next ten years to approximately 300,000 square feet. A multi-modal station will become the focal point for both the city [Lake Buena Vista] circulation system and the regional transportation network. There will be medium to high density living units constructed near the village lake front to create the balance of day and night activities in the commercial center.”

This multi-modal station would comprise bus, taxi, monorail and peoplemover transportation. According to “Lake Buena Vista Peoplemover”, a project proposal published in 1976 and from which the above is quoted, the station would link in with city and regional transportation with the aim of developing a city center “completely void of the private automobile”. This is a manifestation of Disney’s then-commitment to working with the state of Florida, which even in the early 1970’s was rapidly becoming one of the most quickly growing urban areas in the country and much of the local government’s interests at the time were geared towards reducing vehicular congestion. Interstate 4 was online as early as 1957, and in 1971 Disney had quickly constructed a “STOLport”, a small landing strip meant for intra-state commuter planes, another ambitious attempt by then Florida governor Reuben Askew to alleviate traffic congestion. The Florida state flight industry dried up before it even got started, and today the Walt Disney World STOLport sits abandoned. But a transit hub is undeniably a cornerstone of a growing community, which is what Lake Buena Vista was going to be. According to Disney’s plan, the Lake Buena Vista Villas was phase one of an elaborate four-community vacation community, comprising recreation themed communities – golf, tennis, boating and horses – and a transient population of 30,000!

A transient population of 30,000? A peoplemover through a downtown area of shopping and dining? Commercial highrises? Monorails? Modern homes situated in grassy, pastoral suburbs along cul-de-sacs instead of grids? Haven’t we heard this before? That’s right, it’s nearly every component of Walt Disney’s Progress City – only spread out across a huge area instead of the compact circle Walt Disney was envisioning in 1966. Disney was building a community – a real community – or at least trying to.




Come back next week when the Villas become an Institute, an Institute becomes a rubble pile and a hurricane destroys everything!

The Lake Buena Vista Story, Part One: 1969 - 1975

(The following represents the newest entry in my Buena Vista Obscura series which I began last year with my coverage of the Golf Resort. I then put the articles on hold pending further research, which I can now proudly say has paid off with this opus. It will be posted in four parts, one each week, and represents nearly a year and a half of information gathering. Enjoy, I know I did! -FoxxFur)





“Situated in a peaceful, pine woods and water-entwined corner of Disney’s 43-square-mile Vacation Kingdom in Florida is Lake Buena Vista, the Host Community to Walt Disney World. Just off Interstate 4 and State Road 535, this nature-inspired city provides the ultimate in vacation lifestyles.”

What follows is the story of one of Walt Disney World’s most ignored and least understood construction projects. Disney themselves seem loathe to admit what they were up to, back in the early 70’s, which is a shame because the armchair Disney historian, so often so quick to condemn the seventies leadership for their shortsightedness and especially their failure to realize Walt Disney’s E.P.C.O.T. project, may be surprised to learn of the ways the company was actually working towards that goal – on a perhaps more realistic scale. Call it the second draft of the EPCOT city. Disney called it “the Resort Community of Lake Buena Vista”.

It’s debatable whether plans for the Progress City, as it was advertised at the finalie of the Carousel of Progress, in the Walt Disney Story and elsewhere, lived much longer than Walt Disney did. What is on record, however, is that the company continued to actively publicize the Progress City model, even taking time to remove a portion of it from the Disneyland Carousel of Progress and ship it over to Florida for installation along the Florida Peoplemover track in 1975. Since their own community building effort was underway by that time, had they wanted to suppress the Progress City concept they presumably would not have gone to such pains to keep the model on public display, as it still is today. So perhaps there is some truth to Disney’s old publicity claim that Lake Buena Vista was “the experimental prototype of the experimental prototype”. Where the connection may be may lie in the fact that much of Disney’s efforts in Lake Buena Vista lay in community planning, ecologicly friendly construction, and the involvement of American industry leaders and Florida state transportation.

But I’m getting ahead of myself… what exactly was Lake Buena Vista?

To answer that we have to start at the beginning, further back than the existence of Walt Disney World itself, actually. Back in January 1970, Disney opened the first little bit of Walt Disney World available to a paying public, an unassuming square building which stands today, but which was then known as the Walt Disney World Preview Center, on Preview Blvd, off state road 535 in Orlando. At this time, a natural body of water behind the preview center, called Black Lake, became Lake Buena Vista.

The name Lake Buena Vista has always struck me as the most inspiring of names for almost-fake towns, a romantic invocation, three of the best words in the Disney lexicon put in the best order possible. Buena Vista, of course, was Disney’s distribution company created out of his break with RKO in 1950. Walt Disney World did then and does now incorporate the municipalities (Disney callas them “towns”) of Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake, which looks better and less commercial on government maps than “Disney World”. In any case “Lake Buena Vista” is a way better moniker than “Celebration” any day of the week for my money.

A few months after the opening of the Preview Center, construction began along Preview Blvd on the Lake Buena Vista Hotel Plaza, ready to open for guests by Walt Disney World’s second year: Howard Johnson’s still distinctive white tower, a sprawling Dutch Inn, a Royal Plaza which still is memorable for looking like the Contemporary cut in half, and a TravelLodge. By this time, Disney engineers had already begun excavation on Lake Buena Vista, carving out of a canal leading from Black Lake a wider lake which they named Village Lagoon, and kept on digging a complex canal system which eventually wound its way westward and then northward, branching and working its way north all the way past Fort Wilderness and emptying into Bay Lake. These canals still exist today and are known as the Sassagoula River by modern day guests staying at Dixie Landings and Old Key West.

Around this time, the first Vacation Villas began construction on the Village Lagoon and this, my friends, is where our story truly begins. At first, the idea behind these two-level modern little townhouse style homes is that they could be leased or sold to corporate partners to provide a company owned, Disney maintained getaway or to provide incentives or other rewards. In Disney World terms these were truly “out in the sticks”, nearby nothing except the hotel plaza and SR 535 – and this was back in the day when the Lake Buena Vista complex was not internally linked to World Drive, the major tourist artery to the Magic Kingdom – you would have to get back on Interstate 4 via 535 and continue down until you got to the formal 194 / I-4 interchange and could proceed to Walt Disney World.

Entertaining on the Villas' porch

But the Villas faced a peaceful little inlet, and there was a secluded pool, a cove for water launches, and in the earliest years they must have seemed like you had all of Disney World to yourself.

Relaxing at the Villas' pool, late 1970's

The Vacation Villas were perhaps most famous and well-remembered by longtime Disney World visitors as being the strange, low, grey buildings which faced the Walt Disney World Village / Marketplace until 2001. They were perhaps not too astonishing in design – looking more or less like any other apartment complex that could’ve been built in the 1970’s or 1980’s – but for accommodations, they were working overtime. From a 1976 Disney World publication: “For larger families and groups, the spacious one- and two-bedroom Villas provide plenty of room. Each is elegantly furnished and includes all the conveniences – kitchenware, color television, linens and daily housekeeping service. In addition, [Vacation Villa] guests receive complimentary motor coach transportation to the Magic Kingdom and the Walt Disney World Resorts.”

Above, a 1974 promotional image showing the dramatic three-level interior of the Villas. Below, a 1980 view of the outside of a Vacation Villa, and if you look through the window you can see the distinctive wallpaper and signature modern staircase at the back of the living room. A 1987 promotional image better showing the staircase and living room follows.

The Vacation Villas were not long all by themselves along the Village Lagoon. By early 1974, the Lake Buena Vista Golf Course opened alongside the Village Lagoon and extending northwards towards Bay Lake. Designed by Joe Lee, the golf course was “designed with mid-handicap players in mind [but] the Lake Buena Vista course is still challenging enough to be included on the TPA Tour.” Still one of the best and few remaining places to escape back into old Walt Disney World still operating today, the Golf Course was soon followed by its own clubhouse – the Lake Buena Vista Club.

Concept art for the Clubhouse

Opening November 22, 1974, the four million dollar Club was an unassuming little two level structure, the first floor buried to provide a charming entryway from the driveway while allowing the ground to slope away on the water side to provide diners a spectacular elevated view. Built in a Swiss Chalet style, the Clubhouse more or less accommodated just five functions: the Lake Buena Vista Club restaurant, the Lake Buena Vista Club Pro Shop, a pool, lighted tennis courts, and a boat rental and transport marina. In May of the following year, the Marina would host boats leaving every twenty minutes to putter their way across the Village Lagoon over to the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village.

As inauspicious as it may seem today, the Lake Buena Vista Club was amongst Disney’s earliest efforts towards providing a truly high-end dining experience, along with another early restaurant at the Contemporary which has similarly gone by the wayside, the Gulf Coast Room, and The Trophy Room at the Golf Resort. Here is how the Club is described in a 1976 issue of The World News in their Dining Directory Index: “Continental Cusine served in a country club setting. Sportsman’s breakfast from 7 – 11:30 am $.70 - $2.40. Luncheon served 11:30 am – 3 pm. $2.10 – $4.75. Gourmet dinners from 5:30 – 9:30 pm (until 10pm Friday & Saturday). Atmosphere entertainment. Dinner reservations necessary. $5.75 - $12.95. Full menu selection for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 6:30 am – 11 pm $1 - $7.95.” (To put this in perspective, $12.75 in 1974 is the equivalent of over $55 today, and only the Gulf Coast Room and the Trophy Room offered this sort of price point in all of Walt Disney World.)

Here’s another testimonial, this time from the Summer 1981 issue of Disney News, perhaps a bit more evocative:

“Sparkling Evenings at the Lake Buena Vista Club… Imagine yourself comfortably settled amidst the intimate atmosphere of an elegant, private club. A personable, tuxedoed wine captain glides to and fro, attending to your every need; the serving of a sumptuous gourmet meal, or perhaps, the cork-popping of a bottle of vintage wine.

As you savor your meal, you take in a stunning view of a moonlit lagoon, while a trio of strolling musicians lingers near your table, gently rendering a melodic offering you have specially requested.

After losing yourself in the musician’s stylings, you partake of the ‘house specialty’ – a fiery, devilishy delicious concoction containing rum, liquer, and whipped cream. Cares and worries are light years away.”

(The after-dinner coffee mentioned, by the way, is Café Buena Vista – almond liqueur, brandy, coffee, whipped cream and a candied cherry, according to my Cooking with Mickey Around the World from 1986.)

“Lake Buena Vista Club evenings, in particular, offer seekers of “the good life” – couples, singles, families, the young and the young-at-heart, a truly exceptional experience, enhanced by lush, foliaged surroundings, sparkling waters, personalized attention and expertly prepared gourmet meals, highlighted by such unforgettable entrees as Roasted Duck with orange sauce, Supreme of Red Snapper and Steak Diane Flambe.

Add to this gracious environment the stringed instrumentalizings of the ‘Dixie Deltas’ (except Thursdays), an outstanding selection of fine wines, and the Club’s own Café Buena Vista (that ‘devilish’ potion mentioned earlier) and you might very well be ‘spoiled’ by the time you have capped this captivating evening!”

It’s worth noting that, emphasis on alcohol aside - which was indeed a very big difference between Disneyland and Walt Disney World in 1981 – the atmosphere conjured here is pretty similar to Disneyland’s Blue Bayou. In California, Disney had to build an optical illusion of such a place. In Florida, it could be found in nature, waiting for them there.

One short lived and under documented event around this time was the conversion of the Preview Center into “Buena Vista Interiors”, a “quality contract interior decorating firm […] Personalized decorating assistance is available to corporations and individuals leasing townhomes, as well as to Central Florida residents and businessmen.” (interior view at left) Headed by WED’s in-house interior designer Emile Kuri, it’s another intriguing puzzle piece in the story of Disney and American Industry in Lake Buena Vista. This swings us ‘back round to EPCOT and Progress City, of course. From the very get go Disney (Walt) and Disney (Company) knew that much would rise or fall on the involvement of Industry in EPCOT, and part of its’ eventual conversion into a theme park may be a result of Card Walker’s inability to get as many companies interested in forking over huge sums of money during the economically uncertain seventies as was needed to make the Progress City a reality. Disney tried a number of tactics to entice these companies to sign with Disney, and the “lease or buy” program at Lake Buena Vista was one of these.

The construction of the Vacation Villas in 1972 was more or less unpublicized, indicating that Disney initially hoped to sell all of the units or buildings to various companies. “A limited number of one- and two-bedroom villas, fully furnished and complete with linens and kitchenware, are available to families visiting the Vacation Kingdom for short-term rentals.” reports Disney in 1974, several years later, but this was prefaced by the following:

“More than 100 townhomes, incorporating four distinct design styles, already are completed and are available to corporations for two- or three-year-term leases or outright purchase in full. Ideal for executive family vacations, customer entertaining, or sales-incentive-reward holidays, the townhomes come furnished or unfurnished.”

Ah-ha. If at first these townhomes were meant to be purchased in full by companies, then the establishment of a separate interior design firm to furnish these empty Vacation Villas makes perfect sense. Once Disney began publicizing these Villas outside the ‘Host Community’ and in the ‘Vacation Kingdom’, in fact, this “lease-or-buy” theme is constant. While a Spring 1974 Vacationland boasts of an “Exciting, New Lifestyle for American Industry”, a June 1976 World News edition contains the following from a certain Dan W. Darrow, manager of sales and marketing for Lake Buena Vista: “Clients would be impressed with staying in a Treehouse overlooking a fairway, and employees might work harder if they could win a week’s stay in a luxurious Vacation Villa. […] The spacious Villas are ideal for client receptions, business discussions, or cocktail parties with friends.” Those are dollar signs in Disney’s words, there, one must admit, and this sort of angle doesn’t actually vanish from company literature until around 1979, when plans for EPCOT Center the theme park were more or less primed and underway.

Opening in late 1974 and early 1975, some of the most famous and memorable of all early Walt Disney World lodging structures became part of the Lake Buena Vista complex – 60 “Treehouses”, constructed in, in what was an engineering feat for the time, an undisturbed natural wetland – the Treehouses were elevated to allow for natural drainage, as well as protect the structures from the possibility of flooding. What they actually were were a cluster of three bedrooms and a living room apiece, one bedroom on the ground floor, connected to the living room via a spiral staircase, which shared the “top deck” with two bedrooms and a bath.

The Treehouses must be counted amongst Walt Disney World’s most romantically wacky creations. Complete with an outside deck and all-electric kitchen, with parking for electric carts (one presumably left her car at the Club and the cart was free with your room) and a cart pathway which wound alongside the Walt Disney World canal system, past the Lake Buena Vista Club and eventually to the Village, the original Treehouses are emblematic of Disney’s commitment to not repeat themselves with Walt Disney World and offer something sophisticated and different.

All of this development came to the head in May 1975, with the opening of the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village. The Village was intended to be the cornerstone of the Lake Buena Vista community, literally its downtown. It included such diverse offerings as restaurants, an oyster bar open until 2am, a lounge with jazz performances nightly, and a grocery store to give those people in Vacation Villas and Treehouses something to cook in their kitchens and kitchenettes. The Gourmet Pantry even delivered direct to those staying in the “host community”. Nearby, the hotels of the Lake Buena Vista Motor Lodge were hosting lively nightlife and dining, popular with Walt Disney World guests as well as locals and Cast Members.

The Village's waterfront in 1975

Things were looking up for Lake Buena Vista.

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Return next week when we discover Club Lake and the Convention Center!

Bonus Images: